Coffee Dunk

Coffee Dunk is a cafe discovery app where users can find coffee shops, share photos, and rate experiences, blending community, creativity, and caffeine into one platform.

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Coffee Dunk

Inspiration

I’ve always loved the cozy, social vibe of coffee shops. While exploring cafés with friends, I noticed how hard it was to find authentic reviews, photos, and recommendations beyond generic ratings. That inspired me to build Coffee Dunk — a community-driven app where people can discover cafés, share experiences, and connect over coffee.

What it does

Coffee Dunk helps users:

  • Search for cafés by city or location.
  • View community-submitted photos, captions, and ratings.
  • Upload their own posts to earn points and build a profile.
  • Follow other users to explore their coffee journeys.

It’s designed to blend discovery with community, making café visits more engaging and personal.

How I built it

  • Frontend: HTML, CSS, JavaScript (with responsive grid layouts for galleries).
  • Backend: Flask (Python) to serve routes and connect features.
  • Database & Auth: Firebase (Firestore, Authentication, Storage).
  • Design: Figma and Procreate, where I created the logo, background, and overall aesthetic.

Challenges I ran into

  • Integrating Firebase Storage for photo uploads and linking posts with cafés.
  • Structuring the data model so each café page dynamically shows user posts.
  • Balancing UI design with functionality — making it cute and aesthetic while keeping it performant.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

  • Designing and coding both frontend and backend myself.
  • Creating a custom logo and theme to give the app a unique brand identity.
  • Building a working prototype that blends design creativity with technical implementation.

What I learned

  • How to integrate Flask with Firebase for full-stack development.
  • The importance of data modeling for user-generated content.
  • Improving my UI/UX design workflow with Figma and Procreate.
  • Reinforcing the value of balancing aesthetics with performance.

What's next for Coffee Dunk

  • Add advanced features like real-time comments and leaderboards.
  • Launch as a PWA so users can install Coffee Dunk on mobile devices.
  • Scale the backend for wider use and larger datasets.

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